Anil Makhija

Anil K. Makhija serves as a professor of finance while holding the Dean’s Distinguished Professorship at the Max M. Fisher College of Business. Prior to his current role, Makhija served as the college's dean and held the John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business from 2014-2024. Under his guidance as dean, Fisher attained enviable enrollments, program and research rankings, maintained robust financial health, and strengthened the college's network of alumni and friends to create meaningful connections with some of the top companies and organizations around the world.

He is recognized as an expert in the field of finance, particularly capital structure, corporate governance and valuation, and has more than 20 years of experience in academic leadership roles.

He has served on the faculty of the business college since 1998 and has held the following positions: Dean's Distinguished Professorship, the David A. Rismiller Professorship in Finance, the John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business, and senior associate dean. He chaired Fisher's Department of Finance and served as an associate dean of executive education programs, where he was responsible for the development of Fisher's top-ranked Executive MBA program. Makhija was the founding academic director of the National Center for Middle Market.

Makhija has led consulting and executive development programs for dozens of leading companies in the U.S. and around the world. He has held visiting faculty appointments at respected institutions in Chile, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Hong Kong, India and Korea.

Makhija is a respected and widely published researcher. He is also the winner of numerous teaching awards, including the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Pace Setters Daniel Westerbeck Teaching Excellence Award — the highest teaching honors bestowed by, respectively, Ohio State and Fisher College of Business.

Makhija has been a featured expert in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, Financial Times and Bloomberg Businessweek, among many others.

He has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MBA from Tulane University, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.